For the many of us fed up with the worst traits of our somewhat sorry species holding sway over the planet's future.
You embrace fewer isms; "get" that fear borne of ignorance has always been our only problem; and that endless "growth" can only lead to (per Bones) "...life, Jim, but not as we know it."

2011-07-28

Want to know why the GOP (a misnomer since Bush 43 - it's now grand mal, very young and a bi-polar kind of party) is so obdurate in its position on the debt crisis? How about being mad as hell that Obama, a black man, got elected in the first place? That he has no right to be running the country. That it is against God's law that a black man should be dictating to whites. it is certainly God's will that Obama not be allowed to boast of any "victories" while in office. That all government is the Devil's work and must be expunged from the landscape. I could go on, but that's enough crazy for now. Just don't forget that there's about 70 million of these addlepated folks out there. One of them, alas, is Eric Cantor.

And this choleric fellow is one of the U.S. House's 35, or so, Tea Party zealots, currently giving Speaker Boehner fits. John has discovered, to his chagrin, that he's just not crazy enough for them.

To paraphrase the old Chickenman refrain, "They're everywhere! They're everywhere!"

The next 3 items tie citizen Breivek's crackbrained theosophy (though he claims religion is not his prime motivator, just plain-vanilla hatred of folks not like him) into the Fundamenalist Christian Right (Dominionist/Christianist/Fundy) Movement in this country.

This freethinker says (and you can quote me), "gods help us all!" And I mean even the Greek ones. Frankly, I'll take any god that thinks it can lend a hand. Scaling Olympus was child's play.

Prof Cole's quote says all you need to know about this all-too-common form of homicidal mental illness:

"As anyone who studies the Old South in the US will tell you,

turning some people into exemplars of the N-word requires

that you punish in various ways the N-lovers."

It has not gone unnoticed that shooter Breivik made a point of going to an island summer camp comprised mostly of scions of that nation's progressive elite. As Juan's quote above implies, if one cuts off the head of the beast - its future - what better way to ensure extinction beyond the demise of aging foes here and now?

The most discouraging thing for me in all this is that such antediluvian notions persist in the face of our, otherwise, magnificent progress in societal organization (in Europe and elsewhere) in so many areas.

I wonder how long it will take The Nexi to figure out that, as long as we have rank inequality - anywhere - we are bound to repeat this tragic, pernicious meme, in an endless Mobius loop, until we figure it out, or finally go our final, well-deserved, carbon-based way.

Breivek's unlucky curse is his irrational fear of the loss of, and thus need to defend, a false value (the paucity of melanin in his skin) and that "the other" (less advantaged) posed an existential threat to that "value." The "other's" religion, nationality, language, etc. are just the details he weaved together to justify maintaining his elevated status quo; in this case, tragically, by whatever means came to hand.

This process of demonization is familiar to anyone who has taken note of human behaviour. In this case, Muslim demographic infiltration into "his" culture posed a threat that he thought might end up overwhelming that culture, as it just might; history is replete with this type of takeover. So, Breivik's skin color serves as a handy, if simple-minded, metaphor for inequality. It is far easier to use a peripheral issue to avoid (and deny) addressing the real issue here.

As anyone who gives a damn about his fellow man can tell you, social justice is just pretty words on a piece of paper (or parchment) sans economic justice. Tha is the root cause of Mr. Breivek's angst and its only remedy is to end the rank inequality of humans' access to the resources that allow for a civilized life for all.

Solve rank inequality - we will never all be totally equal (I'm a Romantic, not a fool) - and the Breiviks and McVeighs, even the bin Ladens, fade away as they will then have not much more to "lose" than their darker-skinned, differently-tongued, other-idolatered neighbors on Planet Earth.